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Ulysses S. Crani 



ULYSSES S. GRANT. 



A PAPER 

Read before the Missouri Comnianderv 



— OF THE — 



MILITARY ORDER 



— OF THE — 



Loyal Legion of the United States, 

MAY 1ST, 1886, 



-BY- , 



Companion William H. Powell, 

Jh-ig.-Gciicral, U. S. Vols, and Brevet Major-Genera I. 



ST. LOUIS, 

JaMKS IIor.AN I'RINTINC COMPANY. 

i8S6. 







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61605 



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^' ULYSSES S. GRANT, 



Companions : 

General U. S. Grant was born April 27th, 1822, in a little 
one-story house on the banks of the Ohio River, in the village 
of Point Pleasant, in Clermont County, in the State of Ohio. 
His eventful life covered a period of sixty-three years and three 
months lacking four days. 

Our Grand and Great ^i§ ,'Commander, in whom we all 
had the most implicit confidence in the days of the terrible 
conflict through which we passed in 1861 and 1865, is dead. 
Nay, but a sleep— simply at parade rest. He will never die in 
the hearts of the American people. But his influence, like the 
orb of day, will rise and set day by day to shine the brighter 
and the clearer, through the cycles of time, until the land that 
gave him birth shall be destroyed in the final conflagration of 
the earth, when time shall be no more. 

His lifeless form has received the last office-work and trib- 
ute of respect from his comrades, his nation, and the mourning 
millions of the whole earth who recognized his greatness, 
honored his achievements, experienced his humanity and now 
mourn his loss. 

The unparalleled world-wide admiration manifested toward 
the great American Soldier in life, but now, in death, the subject 
of our national grief, made his mourning universal, not only 
throughout the length and breadth of our own land, north, south, 
east and west, but reached out in its universality wherever 
the sun sheds its rays, covering all oceans, seas, lakes and 
rivers; every land, nation and tongue upon the habitable globe. 



Yes, comrades, methinks I see the vast army, who, in the field 
of fierce conflict and sufferings, who died for their country while 
executing the orders of him whose tongue is now silent in 
death, who passed over onto the other side from under the 
shadow of the flag, standing side by side with the great mar- 
shal of our valiant hosts, the martyred Lincoln, looking down 
over the battlements of heaven upon the scenes and ceremonies 
of August 8th, 1885, mourning with us that a great and mighty 
man had fallen. 

Great and mighty man, did I say? Yes, verily, a great 
man, whose greatness will continue to unfold and develop as 
the years pass by, and the time comes when freed from 
passion and prejudices, his acts and conduct can and will be 
judged and rewarded by impartial jurists. 

What an example for the young men of this generation^ 
that the son of a poor tanner, without influence and friends 
until his own God-given, inherent genius developed into weU 
formulated action, that yielded such wonderful results, had won 
them without wealth to purchase place or position of power, 
should advance step by step through all the vicissitudes of 
constant service and mingled blunders and successes, in spite 
of all the jealousies and combinations of political and military 
factions, till at the end of a four years war, equaling in magnitude 
the greatest conflicts of the past ages, he stood at the head 
of the greatest and grandest armies of the world, crowned by 
popular acclaim by the nations of the world Our Greatest 
Soldier. Such disinterested vindication is surely a satisfactory 
answer to all criticism, and sufficent evidence of his unques- 
tioned greatness. 

As critics we may reason on his career ; we may prove from 
our individual stand-points that at but few stages in his history 
did he show personal evidence of marked ability ; we may 
demonstrate what we may have supposed to have been his 
mistakes, as did General Halleck at Fort Donelson and Shiloh 
through prejudice and jealousies, or we may, on the other hand, 
swell the praises of his perhaps over-zealous subordinates and 



admirers and hero worshippers. Be that as it may, after all, his 
career was wonderful, his success without a parallel. I feel that 
I am not claiming more for him than his conduct warrants nor 
more than your judgment readily approves, when I venture to 
say that no man loved his country more or served it better. 

Praise others as we may, honor them as is their just due, 
still the deeds and fame of our departed Chieftain whom we 
mourn to-day, whose memory we so tenderly cherish places 
his name upon the world's roll of honor as the greatest soldier 
of his day. In trials patient and silent ; /// battle watchful and 
determined ; in reverses active, cheerful, hopeful ; in victory 
merciful, modest and magnanimous to the vanquished. His 
genius won for him the command of our armies. 

His success as commander-in-chief of the armies in the 
field placed him at the head of the American Nation, where, in 
the simplicity of his greatness and natural self-poise, he exhib- 
ited new talents, maintaining himself with marked ability for 
eight years in the Administration of the Government in its then 
existing peculiar and unparalleled complexity. 

Criticism is often selfish and vicious, based upon prejudice 
and passion, whilst right action that secures good results, 
though at the sacrifice of life in the field of battle, or party and 
personal friendship in the former is commendatory and justifi- 
able, and but clearly demonstrates the greatness of the mind 
that conceived, and the power of the will that executes. 

Follow our Old Commander in his military career, begin- 
ning at Belmont, Fort Henry, Fort Donelson, Shiloh, Vicks- 
burg, Chattanooga, the battle of the Wilderness, March 5th, 
6th and 7th, 1864; Spottsylvania C. H., May 9th to 12th, 1864 ; 
Five Forks, Petersburg, Richmond and Lee's surrender at 
Appomattox, April 6th, 1865, when his magnanimity and true 
character and greatness was magnified and crystallized in the 
terms of surrender submitted by him to General Lee. In that 
hour of conflict, prejudices and bitter animosities engendered 
by the war, I ask you, was there not something grand, border- 
ing on the divine influencing the conduct of Grant toward 



Lee, as they sat together at Appomattox, indicating a sublimity 
of character and superhuman power that freed him from the 
common sentiment of the masses, as with pen in hand, he for- 
mulated the terms of surrender of the Commander-in-chief of 
the confederate armies — that has since proven an important 
factor in allaying the bitter prejudices of the South, and won 
for its author the highest enconiums of praise. 

How beautifully the following lines express the sentiments 
of the soldiers in their lamentation over the slowly ebbing tide 
of life of their dying hero: 

It seemed to me that yesternight 

I heard the branches sighing 
Beneath my window, soft and low : 

•' The great war chief is dying." 
His marches o'er, his battles won, 

His bright sword sheathed forever. 
Tiie grand old soldier stands beside 

The dark and silent river. 

While fame for him a chaplet weaves 

Within her fairest bowers, 
Of Shiloh's never-fading leaves, 

And Donelson's bright flowers ; 
Grim Vicksburg gives a crimson rose 

Embalmed in deathless story, 
And Appomattox adds a star 

To crown the wreath of glory. 

He's dying now: the Angel Death, 

Insatiate and impartial, 
With icy fingers, stoops to touch 

The Union's old field marshal 
Who, like a soldier brave, awaits 

The summons so appalling, 
While o'er the land from sea to sea. 

The silent tear is falling. 

Still in his veterans' hearts to-day 

His battle drums are beating; 
His bugles always blew advance — 

With him was no retreating; 



And tenderly, witli moistened eye. 

Columbia bends above him, 
And everywhere the sorrowing heart 

Tells how the people love him. 

From golden-lruited orange groves 

To where the pines are sighing, 
The winds waft messages of love 

To Grant, the hero dying. 
The old world sends across the way 

A token of its sorrow ; 
The greatest chief alive to-day 

May fall asleep to-morrow. 

O, touch the hero gently, Death, 

The land is tilled with Aveeping, 
And he is passing like a child — 

The counterfeit of sleeping, 
A million Boys in Blue now stand 

Around their dying brother; 
The miiihty world knows but one Grant, 

■Twill never know another. 

So let him die with honors crowned 

To live fore'er in story; 
The fields he won, the land he saved. 

Will be his lasting glory. 
O, mighty Ajax of the North, 

Old field marshal immortal. 
My saddened heart's with thee to-day 

Before the darkened portal. 

I listened to the winds last night- 
How mournful was their sighing. 

It seems to me a nation sobs 
O'er Grant, the soldier dying. 

O, touch him, touch him softly. Death — 
Insatiate and impartial ; 

He is the Union's mightiest chief— 
My cherished old field marshal."' 

On .July morn the twenty-third 
The news reached every nation : 

Grant died this morn, as he had lived. 
In silent resignation. 



8 

The million Boys in Blue now stand 

Around their departed brother; 
This ujighty world knew but one Grant — 

We will never know anothex". 

Of the long line of illustrious men who have left their 
impress upon our own country's history, there have been three 
who will stand above all the rest, and side by side with each 
other. Washington, who was the father of his country; Lin- 
coln, who guided the Ship of State through the late storm of 
civil strife ; and Grant, the Great General, who saved the 
nation from overthrow in the sanguinary struggle for national 
life. What a glorious trio of patriots, each and all of them 
worth}' examples. While the American people' cherish the 
names and imitate the virtues of these great patriots and bene- 
factors of their race, the nation which the one founded and the 
other saved will live and prosper. Bacon said that "death 
openeth the good fame and extinguisheth envy." So these 
three — Washington, Lincoln and Grant, while they lived lives 
of truth and were each raised up in the providence of God for 
a great work, which they, performed as though specially 
provided and guided by divine wisdom, yet they did not escape 
the shafts of envy and malice ; their great lives were often 
clouded with sadness because the world could not read the 
secrets 'of their hearts as they struggled for the right. 

But death in each case openeth the good fame and 
extinguisheth envy. 

Washington is called the Father of his Country, first in 
war, first in peace and first in the hearts of his countrymen. 
Lincoln, by universal consent of mankind, is recognized as the 
emancipator of the slave race of America, and the friend of 
oppressed humanity everywhere. While Grant, with firm step, 
steady hand, and heart full of devotion to duty, with faith in 
God and man, moved on and on in the work assigned him in 
the field, and still on as a statesman in the councils of the 
nation, amid the fierce shafts of opposition until his work was 
finished. And now that he has passed beyond the reach of 



envy and hate and out of everybody's way, the world assigns 
him his place as an honest man and a patriot without a blot 
upon his record. 

Grant's genius was always ready. It was always brightest 
in an emergency. All his faculties were sharpened in battle ; 
and the man, who, to some, may have seemed dull, or even 
slow, was then the most prompt and decided. 

In the last years of the war, after Grant became Com- 
mander-in-chief, there was need for a combination of his best 
traits. Developed as he then was by experience, taught by 
circumstances, learning from all he saw, and even more from 
what he had done — as few men have ever been developed or 
taught or have learned by patient submission to duty to his 
country more than self— taught him directness and steadiness 
of purpose, clearness and certainty of judgment, self-reliance, 
and immutable determination which carried him through the 
wilderness, which refused to be recalled from Richmond when 
Early threatened Washington, which kept him in front of 
Petersburg when the country was impatient at his apparent 
lack of success, which determined for him when the moment 
had come to assault the works which had detained him so long. 

He seemed to possess the peculiar faculty of penetrating 
at once to the very heart of things. He was quick to see the 
point to strike, or the thing to do, and seeing it he never 
wavered in his judgment if the circumstances upon which he 
based his decision remained unchanged. 

This prominent trait in his character was fully demon- 
strated when his army at Shiloh was badly broken into frag- 
ments, and thousands taken prisoner, and thousands more had. 
through the utter demoralization, gone to the rear. When 
General Buell came upon the field in advance of his troops, still 
miles away, who in that seeming darkest moment of the first 
day's struggle rode up to Grant near the river; seeing the 
situation, supposing all was lost, and not a ray of hokpe 
remaining, asked Grant, "What preparations have you made 
for retreating, General ?" To which Grant replied, "I haven't 



10 

despaired of whipping them' yet. "But if you should be 
whipped," replied Buell, "how will you get your men across 
the river? These transports will not take 10,000 men." " If I 
have to cross the river," said Grant, "10,000 will be all I shall 
need transports for." His army then was 30,000 strong. 

It was as a fighter, rather than a maneuverer, that the 
"silent man" was so remarkably distinguished as in contradis- 
tinction to others who had preceded him to the command of 
the armies. 

He was ready in resources and prompt in decision 
at Belmont, Donelson, Shiloh, Vicksburg, Chattanooga, in 
the Wilderness, Spottsylvania, Five Forks, Petersburg, Rich- 
mond and Lee's Surrender. 

But, it was his invincible determination that knew no fear, 
that marked his career at Shiloh, that won all his victories and 
secured peace and quite to our land, which he so much desired 
and. which won the admiration of the whole earth, and the 
hearts of his own people and nation. 

Follow him now into civil life, after the close of the war, 
into the difficult cabinet position forced upon him by Presi- 
dent Johnson, and in his conduct during the memorable 
impeachment trial of the President, familiar to many if not all 
here this evening, his greatness failed him not ; well do each of 
us remember how earnestly and trustingly the eyes and hearts 
of the people of this nation were then fixed hopefully upon 
General Grant. 

Said one: "I remember seeing General Grant when 
President Johnson was crazed with rage ; when the war minis- 
ter, Stanton, was hedged in with bayonets ; when the country 
was trembling from center to circumference with excitement ; 
when the Executive and Congress each seemed about to call 
out under arms their respective partisans, and once more 
plunge the people into civil war, that amidst all that terrific 
excitement the people looked only with hope and confidence 
to General Grant, who, unmoved by the tempest of passion 
raging around him and spreading over the land, conscious of 



n 

his own ability to control the storm and quiet the elements of 
discord, sat in his headquarters quietly and serenely smoking 
his cigar ; now receiving anxious inquiries from the President's 
friends, and anon receiving a delegation of grave but excited 
Senators ; assuring all — nay convincing all — in his own way 
that the Republic was safe. 

I ask you, call you not such a man greater than they all ? 
And yet, some assume to say that General Grant was merely a 
fortunate man, achieving his success from the failures and 
reverses of his predecessors in command. Fortunate results 
follow only clear judgment, determined purpose, and indomit- 
able execution, and are but the legitimate sequence of cause 
and effect, and so regarded by General Grant, as indicated by 
him in some of his many notable sayings, such as: 

" I do not believe in luck in war any more than luck in 
business." 

"A general who will never take a chance in battle will 
never fight one." 

"I propose to fight it out on this line if it takes all 
summer." 

During the advance on Richmond, in May, 1864, it is said 
that after a hard-fought battle in which the loss in both Grant's 
and Lee's armies was very great. Grant's Corps Commanders 
met that night at his headquarters to propose to him a council 
of war to consider the situation, which was granted, which 
resulted in advising Grant to tall back and cover Washington. 
The silent man listened only, and on the retirement of the 
council bade them good night; near midnight Grant issued an 
order to his Commanders to be in readiness at four o'clock 
next morning to " move to the front by the left flank " and 
engage the enemy ; upon receipt of which several Com- 
manders collected together immediately and repaired to Grant's 
headquarters to ask if there was not some mistake in the orders 
they had received. Reporting to Grant the purpose of their 
second visit, and the supposed mistake in the orders they had 
received, he promptly asked, " What were the orders you 



12 

received ? " when his order was correctly reported, to which 
he repHed, " Such were my orders;" to which the Corps Com- 
manders suggested, " If you attempt such a movement, Lee 
will go to Washington," to which Grant significantly replied : 
"If Lee goes to Washington, I will go to Richmond; be in 
readiness to execute my order." Do you call such determined 
purpose luck ? The sentiments contained in these few brief 
terse sayings clearly defines Grant's true character and pre- 
eminent qualifications as a military genius and commander of 
great armies, and wise executive, and fully demonstrates the 
true secret of his own great success. 

If it were true that Grant was not a great, but a merely 
fortunate man, I ask why did not some other general capture 
Vicksburg? and why did not some one of the many generals 
previously commanding the army of the Potomac drive Lee 
out of Richmond? And why did not some one or more of the 
great statesmen at the National Capital, during the impeach- 
ment trial, calm the storms of human passion and political 
strife, and restore quiet, confidence and stability to the country. 

As in war, so in peace, his greatness, courage and mag- 
nanimity characterized his entire life and formulated the 
beutiful canopy of peace and good-will to all mankind that lent 
its soft, gentle shadows to cover, as a veil, the terrible struggle 
in the hour of death from the loved ones who watched by his 
side, as his great soul bade adieu to mortal abode, to put on 
the Grand Uniform we trust in the eternal armies of heaven. 
At the surrender of Lee he was as impassive as on the most 
ordinary occasions. No exultation over the conquest of 
the conquered hero; and until some of his subordinates had 
congratulated him he seemed not to have realized that he had 
accomplished one of the greatest achievements in modern 
history; and when the works at Petersburg were carried, the 
enthusiasm was unbounded, and whenever or wherever they 
caught a glimpse of him the cheers were vociferous ; and when, 
after the surrender of Lee. they began without orders to salute 
him with cannon, note the nobility, magnanimity, courage and 



13 

greatness of the man as he directed the firing to cease, lest it 
should wound the feelings of the prisoners, who, he said, were 
once again our countrymen. 

And again, when a committee of Congress, headed by 
Charles Sumner, waited on him to propose that a picture should 
be painted of the surrender of Lee, to be placed in the rotunda 
of the National Capitol, he told them he should never consent, 
so far as he was concerned, to any picture being placed in the 
Capitol to commemorate a victory in which our own country- 
men were the losers. 

-It is now too early to properly estimate General Grant. We 
are too near him. We are still in the shadow. As, drawn by 
the inexorable drive-wheels of time, humanity moves away 
from the rocky, mountain defiles of war, in which so many 
were overwhelmed, down the foot-hills and out upon the wide 
planes of ordmary, commonplace history and experience, men 
and women will pause again and again at each passing station, 
and contemplate the sublime heights from which they are 
regretfully receding. Then the great character of General 
Grant in all its majesty and grandeur will stand out before 
them, sublime, eternal, and they will appreciate, as we cannot 
to-day, the life which has just been rounded up. They will see 
the rugged inequalities, the clouds and darkness, and the sunlit 
glories, then they will in some degree comprehend its height 
and depth, its length and breadth. 

We walk about within the great shadows ; soldiers who 
fought with him, citizens who honored him. 

We think of the great war, of the stirring events in which 
he took so prominent a part. We think of the soldiers of the 
Grand Army of the Republic who have preceded him to the 
silent land. We see in our midst his comrades whom we knew 
in the prime of life, in the vigor of young manhood. 

We see their heads whitening with "the snows that never 
melt." We observe their halting steps. We realize that soon, 
ah, too soon, they like the soldiers of the Revolution, will have 
all disappeared. 



14 

We think of what might have been had they not given the 
vigor and glory of their young Hves to their great work. We 
think of what might have been bad the war been prolonged, had 
not a man equal to the emergency risen out of the darkness to 
organize victory. 

We see what is : A nation united, redeemed, enfranchised, 
a great people prosperous and happy, a republic of near sixty 
million souls, making greater advances since these heroes laid 
down their arms than in all its previous history. 

We try to realize what is to be, the grandeur and glory to 
which this great republic will yet attain ; we think of men and 
women and children gathered around millions of happy fire- 
sides in the days that are to be blessed with peace and plenty 

We think of them talking how their ancesters fought and 
he led, and repeating the story of the achievements of their 
fathers and grandfathers linked and blended forever with the 
name of General Grant. 

This is no hero worship. His was not mere military glory. 
There is no path, however weary and sorrowful, which he 
has not trod. He drank to the dregs the bitter cup of poverty 
and want, of humiliation, of sorrow. He stood before Kings 
and was himself a ruler mightier than they. Without brilliant 
personal endowments, such as arrest the attention and dazzle 
the eye, by the quiet force of presistent effort directed by 
sound discretion and constant devotion to duty he performed 
where many failed. 

The record of his extraordinary life is made up. His 
courage, his fortitude, his gentleness, his simple unaffected 
devotion, his patient endurance, his constancy, will be the 
themes of enconium and panegyric so long as men think and 
act and labor and love. Farewell, great leader, illustrious 
citizen, noble benefactor, generous, faithful friend. 

Rest forever in that peace which your own deeds achieved, 
and your own voice commended. Rest forever upon the bosom 
of humanity, close to that gentle master in whose services you 
never faltered. 



15 

"The whole earth is your sepulcher." 
"All time is the milleniiim of tliy glory." 
Farewell. Farewell. 

Companions of the Military Order of the Loyal Legion of 
Missouri: — We are furnished an opportunity and called upon 
at this time to bid adieu to our old Commander and Chief- 
tain. He has been dropped out of the ranks on earth, but his 
name will stand on the Muster-Roll of eternity, and when 
called, the Adjutant will answer "Absent," for the soldier 
never dies. 

May we, who remain to keep the camp-fires burning, ever 
hold a place in each circle and in each memory for him. And 
when the Archangle of Time shall beat the reveille of the ressur- 
rection morn, may we and all the valiant hosts who gave up 
their lives for free government be permitted to pass in Grand 
Riview before the God of nations, marshaled by him who said 
" Let us have peace," into an eternit}' of peace forever- 
Farewell. Farewell. 



